Pervez Musharraf's decision to impose Emergency in Pakistan looks like his last desperate effort to restore a semblance of order in a nuclear-armed, jihad-supporting nation propped up by an imagined identity and foreign aid

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will pay a two-day visit to Russia from November 11. The visit is in continuation of the tradition of holding annual summit meetings between the heads of government, which started seven years ago.

If China thought it had effectively marginalised the Dalai Lama in recent years, it is being forced to think again. In the last few months, the Dalai Lama has once again shot back to international prominence.

Two bomb blasts targeted a group of lawmakers in northern Afghanistan, today, killing at least 100 people, including six members of parliament, the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001,
officials said.

Stepping up pressure, the US has asked pervez Musharraf to quickly shed his uniform and restore democracy, with President George W Bush warning that Washington would deal with the situation if the Pakistani military ruler fails to take his "advice".

Pushing Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to lift emergency, US President George W. Bush asked the General to shed military uniform and hold elections "as soon as possible", adding his voice to the wave of international condemnation against the measure.

With around 1,500 militants "active" in Jammu and Kashmir, the Army is closely watching whether General Pervez Musharraf will counter-balance his crackdown on jehadis on Pakistan's western front by boosting support to militancy in India.

India, for long a victim of American arming of Pakistan with lethal weapons, may finally find some relief if Washington is serious about its decision to review its aid to Islamabad and does a fair job of it.

Even as the mighty Soviets of the 80’s were withdrawing from Afghanistan following their resistance from an army of disparate guerrillas who had humbled them by their sheer resilience (and definitely not without statistical help from their . . .

BY imposing martial law, Gen Pervez Musharraf has pushed nuclear-armed Pakistan further along a perilous course and underscored the failure of President Bush’s policy towards a key ally in the war on terrorism.

IS the war in Iraq and Afghanistan really a fight for the last traces of oil and gas left on earth? After Alan Greenspan’s (former chairman of the US Federal Reserve) outburst comes the report of the Germany-based Energy Watch Group to . . . . .

On the day Pakistan’s deposed chief justice called on lawyers to take to the streets till General Pervez Musharraf lifts the state of emergency and the US led global calls for early polls in the country, hundreds of Islamic militants seized a . . . .

The Iraq War and subsequent events in the region, including the war in Lebanon and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have significantly altered the distribution of power and calculations of governments in the region.

THE proclamation of emergency rule by President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who seems to have lost the plot, is in effect a throwback to authoritarianism, which will unquestionably have wide-ranging consequences for Pakistan — hemmed in by. . .

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a coup eight years ago and was the repeated target of assassinations for allying his Islamic nation with the United States in its war on terror, promised to bring true democracy to Pakistan.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has hinted at a "review" of the massive American aid to Pakistan in the wake President Pervez Musharraf's clamping of Emergency, but senior officials, including Rice herself, concede that Washington faces major const

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf seemed to be one of the Bush administration's most valuable foreign friends after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when he denounced al Qaeda and the Taliban and joined the U.S.-declared war on terrorism.

US President George Bush on Monday turned the heat on his "tight" buddy Pervez Musharraf to force the Pakistani dictator to back down from his confrontation with the country's civil society and restore the modicum of democracy he had allowed.

For six decades, the Indian border has been the raison d’etre — the very reason for existence-of the Pakistan army. Most formations, including its two Strike Corps, are aggressively positioned near the border to counter Indian forces.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? The United States could well be wondering why its relationships with three major countries that should be close allies have become so frayed. Ties with Japan, India and Turkey are all being damaged as . . .

Survival is clearly General Pervez Musharraf’s reason for the emergency in Pakistan. By next week, the Supreme Court was to declare him ineligible to contest the elections. Within hours of the Emergency, a pliable Chief Justice is in place.

Recentlu, William Dalrymple wrote a critique of Bernard Lewis’s book From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East, a collection of 51 essays that he wrote over the years. Many were criticised for their historical inaccuracies.

Terrorist attacks are not new in Pakistan, but after the military operation at Lal Masjid, there has been an ominous upsurge in militant mayhem in the country. What has given a dangerous dimension to extremist violence is the escalation in . . . .

The Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, has declared, according to Sheikh Rashid, the railways minister, a state of “Emergency Plus” because his order carries with it a Provisional Constitutional order (PCO) associated . . . . . .

IF at the end of six years of open war against the so-called militants and loss of thousands of lives of citizens and soldiers, Gen Musharraf can make no better showing than yet another bomb blast close to his residence on Oct 30 and . . . . .

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which is scrutinising the Tehelka-Aaj Tak sting operation on the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, said no one can challenge the findings of national inquiries.

The United States says it's "deeply disturbed" by its key ally Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule in apparent defiance of Washington and asked him to hold elections by January 15 as promised.

Police wielding assault rifles rounded up hundreds of Opposition leaders, lawyers and rights activists in Pakistan today but Imran Khan was said to have escaped from his home hours after being put under house arrest.

MANY years ago, when on assignment with the International Control Commission in Vietnam, one of the first sights that one witnessed in down town Saigon was that of a Buddhist monk protesting the State’s religious discrimination practiced . . . . . .

India had reasons to mince its words on General Pervez Musharraf’s second coup that suspended Pakistan’s constitution, emasculated the higher judiciary that was beginning to show signs of independence, and pulled the plug on the vibrant . . . . . .

General Pervez Musharraf may not call it so but his proclamation to suspend Pakistan’s constitution in his capacity as Chief of Army Staff on Saturday amounted to a declaration of martial law. Pakistanis are used to their army taking over . .. . . . .

Pakistan is accustomed to periodic impositions of martial law, or emergency. But General Pervez Musharraf’s “second coup” comes at an especially fraught juncture, and its repercussions could be far more destabilising than his patrons in . . . . .

History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. Karl Marx's famous dictum is nowhere more applicable than in Pakistan where General Musharraf, by declaring an emergency, has pulled off a repeat of his 1999 coup.

For much of the last century, the mountainous region of Swat was ruled as a princely kingdom where a benign autocrat, the wali, bestowed schools for girls, health care for everyone and the chance to get a degree abroad for the talented.

THE Parliamentary Committee on Defence has only reiterated a long-standing demand of the armed forces and strategic experts with its recent call to withdraw the Army from internal security deployments and hand over the task to paramilitary . . . .

“If India becomes an ally of the United States of America, it will tilt the balance for imperialism … we cannot accept any step that will subordinate ourselves to the USA,” Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India . . . .

Pomp, ceremony and controversy has marked the start of king Abdullah's three-day visit to Britain, the first by a Saudi monarch in 20 years, with human rights protestors and leading British politicians denouncing the red carpet welcome. . .

The Pakistani Army is "bleeding", and quite profusely at that, in its ongoing bloody skirmishes with extremists in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, with a "high" casualty rate as well as "unprecedented" levels of desertions . . . .

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tonight admitted that there was some delay in taking next steps to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal but added an optimistic dimension when he said: “We have not reached the end of the road.”

AMID the succession of sad milestones that come with war, one of the more poignant came last week when the late Lt. Michael Murphy became the first Medal of Honour recipient for combat in Afghanistan. The award was presented posthumously. . .

First Lady Cristina Fernandez, in her first televised interview since winning Argentina’s presidency, wished Hillary Clinton well in her US election bid and thanked her husband for his role in her triumph at the polls.

The Pakistan capital is on high alert following intelligence reports that suicide bombers have entered the city in the wake of fierce clashes between security forces and militants in the restive Swat region.

Even though it is not from Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who specialises in ‘million-man’ marches, the statement coming from the Jamaat-i-Islami’s NWFP chief needs to be taken note of because of its callousness.

India is keen to receive gas from Turkmenistan via a planned pipeline and is also considering investments in gas and oil producer Qatar to meet rapidly rising domestic demand, India’s Oil Minister Murli Deora said on Monday.

Both in politics and in military strategy buying time by reaching a tactical agreement with the potential adversary is a standard procedure. India's governing United Progressive Alliance (UPA) move to assure the Left that the operationalisation . . . .

Pakistani troops killed up to 60 militants during fierce fighting in the Swat valley in the country’s northwest, the army said today, and the insurgents called a truce to recover their dead and wounded.

THE efforts to defuse the Iranian crisis through dialogue suffered a major setback when the US imposed fresh sanctions on the Persian Gulf nation last week to force it to give up its nuclear ambitions.